Picture books are constructive way into a complex content area. This offers a way to engage students, start debate, and stimulate discussion using accessible texts which can still be quite thought provoking and challenging. This also means that they can be a trojan horse into co-teaching, such as a unit on Slavery using the arthouse picture book Middle Passage: white ships/black cargo by Tom Feelings.
HSIE can harness the picture book to introduce topics, especially in history, such as In Flanders Field by Norman Jorgensen and Brian Harrison-Lever, or Memorial by John Marsden, looking at war. Or try Feathers and Fools by Mem Fox as a way into the Cold War. Check them out. A PDHPE unit on family or nutrition could be enhanced by Let's Eat by Ana Zamorano. A holocaust narrative worth exploring is The cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse.
Mathis explores the use of picture books to set the scene for exploring concepts and themes in other literature (Mathis, 2002). This is an article well worth exploring given that it highlights some of the aspects of content area teaching which can be a challenge with some classroom environments.
Scene setting:
The Tin-pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman
The Butter Battle Book
Home and Away
Exploring themes:
prejudice - Tusk Tusk
environment - The Story of Rosie Dock
homelessness - Way Home and Fly Away Home
Complementary Texts
My Hiroshima and Paradise Road
Briar Rose and Let the Celebrations Begin
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (film or book) and Rose Blanche
When the Wind Blows and Children of the Dust or Brother in the Land
Content Area:
Picture books are constructive way into a complex content area. This offers a way to engage students, start debate, and stimulate discussion using accessible texts which can still be quite thought provoking and challenging. This also means that they can be a trojan horse into co-teaching, such as a unit on Slavery using the arthouse picture book Middle Passage: white ships/black cargo by Tom Feelings.
HSIE can harness the picture book to introduce topics, especially in history, such as In Flanders Field by Norman Jorgensen and Brian Harrison-Lever, or Memorial by John Marsden, looking at war. Or try Feathers and Fools by Mem Fox as a way into the Cold War. Check them out. A PDHPE unit on family or nutrition could be enhanced by Let's Eat by Ana Zamorano. A holocaust narrative worth exploring is The cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse.
Mathis explores the use of picture books to set the scene for exploring concepts and themes in other literature (Mathis, 2002). This is an article well worth exploring given that it highlights some of the aspects of content area teaching which can be a challenge with some classroom environments.
Scene setting:
Exploring themes:
Complementary Texts